World Snooker Championship to be Broadcast on Facebook Live

Snooker’s biggest tournament will be broadcast on Facebook Live throughout North and South America as well as and the Indian Sub-Continent for the second consecutive year.

The Betfred World Championship runs from April 21 to May 7 and the entire tournament will be broadcast live on Facebook in nearly 40 countries throughout North and South America as well as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.

Fans in those territories will be able to watch the event FREE simply by connecting to World Snooker’s Facebook page.

The live broadcast will include coverage of both tables from the famous Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, as 32 players battle for one of the most prestigious titles in sport.

The Betfred World Championship was broadcast on Facebook Live in the same territories for the first time last year, generating a total of 3.2 million video views and 53 million post impressions.

Pakistan had the highest number of fans watching the broadcast, with 576,000 video views, followed by India, Brazil, Colombia and the USA.

World Snooker Chairman Barry Hearn said: “This is fantastic news for snooker fan across the globe as it means that people in many territories where we do not have television coverage can watch our biggest tournament for free on Facebook Live.

“We were thrilled by the figures we saw last year when we delivered this broadcast for the first time, with over three million video views in a wide range of countries.

“It’s fascinating for us to discover how much support there is for our sport in territories where we do not have television coverage. This helps us to build our strategy in terms of finding out the strength of the markets and developing our sport across the planet.

“We’re delighted to be working with Facebook on this initiative and looking forward to what will be a wonderful 17 days of action from the best players in the world.”

To watch the Facebook Live stream, if you are in one of the countries listed below, all you need to do is visit www.facebook.com/WorldSnooker1 once the tournament starts. Then ‘Like’ the page to get notifications about the live broadcast, as well as all the latest news and information about snooker.

There will also be extensive Facebook Live coverage of the final qualifying round of the Betfred World Championship on April 17 and 18. With commentary from Rob Walker and Neal Foulds, we’ll be following the action on Judgement Day as players compete for places at the Crucible. The draw for the final stages will then take place at 10am on Thursday April 19, on Facebook Live as well as Betfred TV.

The qualifying rounds run from April 11 to 18 and fans can watch on the Eurosport Player, with live coverage of two tables throughout the eight days. To sign up to the Eurosport Player and enjoy live coverage of many of the biggest tournaments throughout the year, visit www.eurosportplayer.com.